Hello fellow birders, There has been much talk on the mild winter and spring weather that most of the country has experienced and the question, will that cause an earlier migration. Two migration factors that are not directly influenced by mild weather are sunlight and winds. There is one factor that influences migration that is positively influenced by mild winter and spring weather and that is food. It is my experience that insects are much more abundant when there is a mild winter and spring. If this is true it may "speed" the migration ( to what degree I would not know )due to two factors. If there are more insects available during migration birds will have to spend less time to injest calories ( build fat ) and thus will be able to migrate earlier from each stopover site. Second factor is with the warmer weather birds will have to expend less calories for heat and thus will have this "saved" energy to use for flight thus be able to migrate from stopover sites earlier. This is contingent on insect availability during the migration period. An entemologist would have information on how early warmer weather affects specific inscects emergent/hatch dates. If the mild weather produces insects that are not normally available during migration or larger numbers of insects that are normally available during migration it will be interesting to see if this "speeds" up migration and by how much. I am interested to hear feedback an my belief that nature is a basic energy equation !!!! May the birds be with you, Henry. ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]